2008 WSOP, Day 17: Laughs & Lightning Bolts

Am sitting here with Change100 covering Event No. 28, the $5,000 Pot-Limit Omaha w/rebuys event. It’s about midnight. We’ve been here for nine hours, and they’ve played down to the last 20.

The top 18 get paid, and after all the wildness yesterday this here bubble is super-tight. Makes sense, as the person in 18th will get $54,003 while the 19th place finisher will get a big pile of nada.

It has been a smooth day, reporting-wise. We had some good reporters today, and not too many players and tables with which to keep up. We’re playing down to the final nine, though, so this could be a long night for yr humble gumshoe.

Thought I’d share a few humorous bits as we wait out the end here.

Before the start of today’s play, Johnny Chan came over to our workstation with his iPod and asked if he could recharge it for a half-hour. Of course, we said. He then asked one of the reporters, Mickey, if he’d bring it back over to him when it had completely recharged. Glad to, said Mickey.

Then Zeke, another reporter, had an idea. “When Chan comes back,” he told Mickey, “you should hide his iPod. Then when he asks where it is, say ‘Sorry, John. I don’t remember.’”

We’re over in the Brasilia Room today, tucked away in the corner a good ways away from our tables which are in the center of the large ballroom. We’re located right by the entrance, so almost everyone who comes in seems to believe Change and I are some sort of information desk. Folks constantly stopping and asking us about satellites, cash games, the nightly tourneys, among other things. One guy even asked if we had any napkins.

Finally, Change put up a sign that read “THIS IS NOT AN INFORMATION BOOTH.” Still didn’t keep people from asking questions, though it slowed down the pace a bit.

Then one dude comes over and asks the sort of question that threatened to put us all in an existential funk from which we may never recover:

“I know you’re not the information booth, but can you tell me where the information booth is?”

Finally, let me just share a recent post I put up during this rather quiet period during which we are waiting for the bubble to burst. Phil Hellmuth had been prattling on fairly consistently for the last few hours. Then came this:

“Like a Lightning Bolt”
Few hands are going beyond the flop, and those that do make the river are generally producing smallish pots.

Meanwhile, Phil Hellmuth continues to offer critique of the play of Brian Rast and/or reminders of Hellmuth’s own greatness. A recent example of such unsolicited commentary culminated thusly:

“I kind of like you, kid. But you will understand why I’m Phil Hellmuth by the end of the night. It will be like a lightning bolt -- He's Phil Hellmuth!”

Like I say, we may well be here for a while. Chan is probably going to have to recharge his iPod again.

Follow along over at PokerNews.

2008 WSOP, Day 16: Rebuy!

Yesterday I helped cover the first day of Event No. 28, the $5,000 Pot-Limit Omaha w/Rebuys event.

The rebuy period lasted for the first three levels, and the play during that stretch was predictably manic. As Event No. 19 (the $1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha event, the last one I helped cover) had demonstrated pretty much from start to finish, PLO, particularly the tourney variety, is a game for gamblers. Add the rebuy option and a bunch of high rollers with bottomless pockets to the mix, and you’re looking at an all in practically every hand, it seemed.

There were 152 entrants total, including just about every big name you can imagine aside from Sammy Farha and Mike Matusow. In addition to the $5,000 entry fee, those 152 also ended up forking over enough for 483 rebuys and add-ons, making the total prize pool exceed $3 million. That’s an average of over $20,000 per entrant.

As usually happens with these things, some players came with an endless supply of ammo. After the rebuy period had ended, we heard that Daniel Negreanu was in for $85,000. No one was absolutely certain about that figure, but it certainly seemed close to that. Our reporters and I had seen Negreanu rebuying repeatedly, always taking the “double rebuy” option where you could buy 20,000 chips for ten grand once you went busto.

A few others, including Tom “durrr” Dwan, were said to have rebought ten times or more. In fact, when the players were leaving for their dinner break (after Level 3), I overheard Negreanu telling other players “there’s one in for 80, and a couple more for 75 . . . I’m not the only one.” He was excited about the inflated prize pool, to be sure. Of course, he’ll now have to finish in the top eight to see a profit in this one.

I say “the reporters and I” saw Negreanu’s frequent rebuys because for a change I had a very nice location to cover this event, right in the corner of the Media Press Box overlooking the action. This picture (thanks, Pokerati!) gives a good idea where I was and what I saw last night -- right on top of that jaw-dropping Table No. 15 we reported on so frequently.

That table had already gotten some attention from the first hand, when we all noticed Robert Williamson III, Erick Lindgren, Erik Seidel, Sirous Jamshidi, Daniel Negreanu, and Daniel Alaei sitting around it. Then, probably less than half an hour into the proceedings, Phil Hellmuth took his seat in between Williamson and Lindgren, his arrival causing an audible reaction from the players.

As if that weren’t enough, during Level 3, Phil Ivey was moved to Table No. 15, sporting a cool 100,000-chip stack with him. I reported Ivey’s arrival at the table in a short post jokingly titled “The End of the World As We Know It.” A bit silly, perhaps, but all of that betting and frequent instances of players getting stacked had given the whole event a kind of apocalyptic feel.

People started gathering around Table No. 15, some with cameras (including video). Only a few seemed to have the appropriate credentials to be standing within the playing area, but Harrah’s staff were a bit slow clearing the area. The scene never became too unruly, but sitting so close, it certainly seemed as though officials’ control over the event was starting to become a bit tenuous.

In any event, the super-stacked table broke just after the rebuy period ended, and the entire tournament settled into a more reasonable, less frantic pace as players began to be more careful with their stacks.

By the time we got down to 60 players near the end of the evening, I’d done a little quick math and realized that thanks to all of the rebuys and add-ons the average stack was over 100,000. Meanwhile the blinds were only 600/1,200 (in Level 8, our last level of the night). Which meant very few players had to gamble at all, although a few did and we saw Scotty Nguyen, Dave “Devilfish” Ulliott, Michael Mizrachi, Andrew Black, and Michael Binger all walk out just before the night ended some time after 3 a.m.

That was another thing about our location. We were sitting in a place where anyone who busted had to walk right by us in order to exit the Amazon Room. We ended up witnessing numerous examples of that “walk of shame” some refer to when describing these ignominious departures. Kind of interesting to compare the looks on the players’ faces as they made that trek.

This was a pro-heavy field, so all of these guys had been there many, many times before. Thus the frequent look of resignation and/or acceptance. Only a few seemed especially upset or frustrated-looking. I was impressed with Michael Binger, one of the last to bust, who perhaps appeared relatively more disappointed than some, but still maintained a certain professional dignity as he passed by. A few moments later I got his bustout hand from the reporter and wrote it up for the blog. He’d been ahead on the flop and turn, but lost out when his opponent (Erick Lindgren) caught a needed flush card on the river. Big pot, too. But Binger was cool about it.

You’ve read about the new “excessive celebration” penalty, which apparently has only been enforced a couple of times thus far. Covering these higher buy-in events in which most of the field is made up of seasoned pros, one senses how unnecessary such a rule is to govern their behavior. Even Hellmuth kept in check last night, no doubt influenced somewhat by the professionalism of those with whom he was sitting. (And, perhaps, the general lack of video cameras.)

Going back over in a little while for Day 2. Am looking forward to it. I guess you could say I’m still willing to keep “rebuying” into this here ongoing circus, too.

We’re playing from 52 down to the final nine, so theoretically we could be looking at a relatively short day at the office. Then again, with all of those rebuys and add-ons yesterday, the stacks are pretty deep, so it may take a while.

I’ve had some seriously good fortune in that regard, unlike poor Snoopy and Dana, who seem to have been stuck with every one of those events with the 18 hour-plus days. Doesn’t seem to have negatively affected Snoopy’s spirit or creativity, though, as his blog has consistently demonstrated over the last couple of weeks. (Check it out.)

And speaking of fellow bloggers/PokerNews people, big congrats to F-Train for his 33rd place finish (and cash) in the Razz event. (Missed my chance at getting a piece of his action!) Gotta love this picture of Dave that appeared amid the PokerNews reports on the event. I’ve only just met Dave since arriving here this summer, but I think I’ve interacted with him enough to understand the beast-like ferocity of this photo doesn’t exactly capture his usually friendly demeanor. This, friends, is what Razz does to people.

As always, be sure to follow all of the action today over on PokerNews.

2008 WSOP, Day 16: Year of the Pro?

Twenty-two bracelets have been awarded thus far at this year’s World Series of Poker. Much is being made of the fact that among those winners have been a few established pros with impressive records of past tourney accomplishments.

Fans of televised poker and even casual observers like it when familiar faces reach these final tables and take ’em down. Chris Ferguson’s appearance at the final table of Event No. 2, the first $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em event, turned the Milwaukee’s Best Light “No Limit Lounge” into a sold-out rock concert, with a throng of admirers lining up to catch a glimpse of the long-haired superstar.

Serious poker players like it, too, when these guys do well, as it tends to reinforce the notion that in poker skill is rewarded -- that while it certainly involves gambling, poker isn’t strictly speaking a chance-based endeavor.

While I wouldn’t necessarily dub it the “year of the pro” just yet, I’d agree that among the winners we’re seeing a significant percentage of players who’ve proven themselves previously. A quick overview of the bracelet winners thus far shows them falling into three distinct categories: the superstars, the proven pros, and the newcomers.

The Superstars (5)

The most notable among those pros who have won bracelets thus far are Nenad Medic, David Singer, Erick Lindgren, Mike Matusow, and Daniel Negreanu. Of all the winners, these five are by far the most recognizable thanks to their appearances on the tube, as well the most accomplished in terms of their previous tourney triumphs.

Nenad Medic, Event No. 1 winner, had won one WPT championship and had already earned over $2.8 million in tourney winnings before the series began. David Singer, a consistently-successful player whose list of achievements includes final tabling the 2003 Main Event and the first two $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. events, won Event No. 3. He’s now closing in on $4 million in career tourney earnings.

Erick Lindgren took the bracelet in Event No. 4, adding to his long list of prior successes, as well as to the $6 million he’d previously earned in poker tourneys. Mike Matusow, winner of Event No. 18, had won a couple of WSOP bracelets before, had made a couple of Main Event final tables, and had also racked up about $6 million in tourney earnings over the previous decade.

And when Daniel Negreanu won Event No. 20, he became one of the very few $10 million men in tournament poker.

The Proven Pros (10)

Beyond those guys, most of those who have taken down events this year have had some relevant experience -- and success -- prior to this summer’s series. Having covered a few final tables thus far, I’ve noticed that just about everyone who makes it that deep in a WSOP event has not come out of “nowhere” to do so. Most have enjoyed previous tourney successes, including at the WSOP.

Event No. 9 winner Rep Porter had cashed in nine previous WSOP events (including one this year), and Event No. 5 winner Michael Banducci had cashed in seven WSOP events over the past two years. Event No. 10 winner Farzad Rouhani had six previous WSOP cashes, including a near-miss second place finish in 2006. Event No. 6 winner Thang Luu had also nearly won a bracelet before, coming second in last year’s $2,000 Omaha Hi-Lo Split event.

Three other bracelet winners -- Matt Keikoan (Event No. 7), Vanessa Selbst (Event No. 19), and Scott Seiver (Event No. 21) -- had each had five previous WSOP cashes. Event No. 11 winner Philip Tom had cashed in four WSOP events, and Ladies Event winner (Event No. 15) Svetlana Gromenkova had cashed in three, two of which were open events. And Jens Voertmann, who took down Event No. 22 last night (the $3,000 H.O.R.S.E. event), had a few cashes in European tourneys as well as a cash at a previous WSOP Main Event.

The Newcomers (7)

The other seven bracelet winners all made their first significant cash when they won their 2008 WSOP bracelets. Grant Hinkle (Event No. 2), Jimmy Shultz (Event No. 12), Eric Brooks (Event No. 14), and Andrew Brown (Event No. 16) have no other cash listed over at Hendon Mob. And Anthony Rivera (Event No. 8), Duncan Bell (Event No. 13), and Jason Young (Event No. 17) have just one or two small cashes each, the only one of note being Bell’s small cash at the 2005 WSOP Main Event.

* * * * *
Chances are good, frankly, that even these guys who hadn’t made the limelight before had been toiling for some time to get there. No one just jumps into one of these events without some prior knowledge and experience and takes it down. Anytime we get down to the last three or four tables in these suckers, almost everyone left has had some sort of experience at the WSOP or at other major tourneys.

So we’ll wait on the “year of the pro” stuff for now, but it’s possible we may end up calling it that before it’s all over. Looking at today’s final tables, we have one with a couple of “proven pros” and another with some “superstars”:

Event No. 23, the $2,000 No-Limit Hold’em event, doesn’t have any huge names but there are at least a couple with proven track records there. Dustin Dirksen took a second at a WSOP event last year, and Chris Bjorin has won over $3 million lifetime, including having made a deep run in the event I last covered, Event No. 19 ($1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha).

And Event No. 24, the $2,500 Pot-Limit Hold’em/Pot Limit Omaha event, features Minh Ly, Allen Cunningham, and Max Pescatori. If any of these three take it down -- in particular Cunningham -- the “year of the pro” talk will surely flare up once again. With good reason.

Tonight I’ll be covering Day 1 of Event No. 28, the $5,000 Pot-Limit Omaha with Re-Buys event. I’ll certainly be checking in from time to time on Day 2 of the Razz event (Event No. 26), though, where one “newcomer,” known to some of us as “F-Train” is among the 104 left. Would love to see him make it to tomorrow.

Follow it all over on PokerNews, natch.

2008 WSOP, Day 15: R & R

Friday the 13th and I’m off. Lucky me. Actually slept ‘til noon today, meaning after almost three weeks in Vegas and two weeks of working, my sleeping-waking schedule may finally be adjusting to where it needs to be.

I saw Yorkie Pud’s comment asking whether I’ve gotten to play much poker myself lately. A few people have asked me that, actually. Gadzooks asked me, too, when she stopped by to see the end of the PLO final table I covered last night. Was glad to see her once more, as the Vegaspalooza express rolls out tomorrow, I believe.

I told ’Zooks that I had played exactly four times. Five, now, as I did make it over to Binion’s today for a short while. Four of those five sessions have only lasted an hour or two each. Had one longer session at the Imperial Palace where I played a very fun 2/4 H.O.R.S.E. game. Ended up a loser (damn you, Razz!), but had a blast. Falstaff is the one who got me over there, picking me up at the end of a shift at the Rio. (Thanks, man!)

Today’s short session at Binion’s went better. After an hour or so I left up twenty-plus clams, though couldn’t help thinking it could’ve been more, as not once but twice I folded suited cards only to see I would have flopped a flush both times.

So I haven’t played much. And to be honest, being so inundated with poker has significantly reduced the urgency to play.

Watching these guys go at it for hours upon hours in the Rio, I’ve noticed a couple of differences between myself and them. The obvious one, of course, is the wide gap in our relative skill level. Sure, I’ve seen some bad play here and there, especially during the first couple of levels of these three-day events. But I’ve seen some incredible poker, too. Pretty much anybody who makes a final table at one of these things has more than some clue about what he or she is doing. Or at least that has been my impression.

I think I mentioned a couple of posts back having harbored a fantasy about playing in that $1,500 PLO event that concluded last night. Observing that final table, especially when it got down to four- and three-handed, I felt a little like a recreational hoopster at an NBA game. Yeah, it looks like the same game, but if I were to step out onto the hardwood I’d be lucky to last one trip up the court.

The other difference is the level of commitment these guys have to poker. They simply cannot get enough of it. On Day 2 of our event I watched (and reported on) Eugene Todd running back and forth between the PLO tourney and Day 1 of the $5,000 No-Limit Hold’em tourney which he’d also entered. I’m seeing players bust out of my event, then minutes later be sitting at a cash game, or in a different event on the other side of the Amazon Room.

They live and breathe it, clearly. For them it seems strange not to be playing. I love to play, of course, but it’s rare for me ever to feel anxious about not playing.

Tomorrow I’m covering Day 1 of the $5,000 Pot-Limit Omaha w/Re-Buys event (Event No. 28). I have yet to see Sammy Farha this summer, though I’d think he’d be showing up for this one, if he’s coming at all this summer. Should be another wild and woolly one, I imagine.

Tonight I’m taking it easy. Will probably check now and then over at PokerNews to see how that Razz event is going (Event No. 26), in particular how F-Train is doing. He played a little while with me at that H.O.R.S.E. game over at the Imperial Palace. I think I mentioned before that I had a guy on my left later on who was playing in today’s Razz event as well, so that made two different WSOP entrants at my table.

Would be cool to see ’em both still playing when I go back to the Rio tomorrow.

2008 WSOP, Day 14: Postscript

At one point last night after the tourney had gone three-handed, I was standing next to the table, right along the ropes where fans had gathered. I was just a few feet back, on Jamie Pickering’s left and Vanessa Selbst’s right. This was when Selbst had around three-fourths of the chips in play in front of her -- close to 1.5 million -- while both Pickering and Stanley Statkiewicz were nursing stacks of about 300,000 each.

We were between hands, and the dealer was pushing the cards around on the felt before him, jumbling them up and reassembling them in preparation for the subsequent hand. Suddenly I hear a voice addressing me from well above my left shoulder.

“What’s this?”

I answer before looking up. “PLO final table.” Then I look. Why, it’s Phil Gordon. Man, he is tall.

He sticks around for a couple of hands. One came up in which Selbst made an almost pot-sized bet after the flop and the action was on Pickering. He hemmed and hawed for at least a couple of minutes. It was one of many instances where to continue with the hand would’ve meant committing oneself utterly, as a call would represent probably a third of Pickering’s stack.

“Is he like this every hand?” Gordon asked me in a low voice.

“Nah,” I whispered. “The shorties are trying to outlast each other,” I added by way of clarification. Gordon nodded.

Pickering eventually folded, and Gordon left soon after that.

I mention the encounter for a couple of reasons. One, it illustrates something that has happened to me every single day I’ve been at the Rio: casual, fleeting interactions with individuals I’d only known previously from their frequent appearances on my television screen (and/or my iPod). I haven’t even mentioned most of them as they don’t really amount to a heck of lot in terms of what the day ultimately signified (to me, anyway). Those encounters do, nevertheless, provide a curious rhythm to one’s day.

The other reason why I mention it is to illustrate (again) the intensity of that final table. Pickering might well be remembered as a wild party guy who lucked his way into almost winning the bracelet. The fact that he is a wild party guy -- I believe he runs a strip club in his home Australia -- will contribute to that impression, too.

But the fact is, he played some solid poker throughout the tourney, and especially at that final table. He, Selbst, and Statkiewicz (the final three) were tough, competitive, skillful combatants. The time Pickering took on that hand Gordon witnessed was a bit unusual (at that point in the night, anyway), but indicative of how carefully he and the others were playing.

Both Pickering and Statkiewicz would eventually manage to double through Selbst, making the three stacks relatively even. And boy did it become even more intense, then. What had been a relatively light-hearted scene in which Selbst’s victory seemed assured and everyone else was playing for second had suddenly shifted into something much more serious.

Back with more a little later.

2008 WSOP, Day 14: Reporting from the Eye of the Hurricane

What a night.

The final table of Event No. 19, the $1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha event won by Vanessa Selbst, will likely be remembered as one of the craziest, most manic, and most entertaining final tables this summer. By the few of us who saw it, anyway.

Working conditions were not ideal, but we managed. They played out this final table not in the mini-arena-slash-staging area where they shoot the televised tables (that’s where Daniel Negreanu was busy winning his bracelet in Event No. 20). Rather, they had the final nine of Event No. 19 gather around just another table right outside the arena, tucked in a corner somewhat away from the hustle and bustle of the Amazon Room.

That meant very little access for railbirds, which would become an issue as the night wore on. It also affected how we covered the proceedings. Rather than remain stationed at a desk from which we could watch the action, we had to set up our workstations on chairs off to the side. Not too cool (or convenient), and frankly it meant our coverage would necessarily be slowed down as we always had to run back and forth from the table to our laptops. Nothing we could do about it, though.

As it turned out, we still managed to report every bustout hand and all of the major hands for the entire final table. Things got particularly hairy once it got down to heads-up and Jamie Pickering, the eventual second-place finisher, started raising pots without looking at his cards. That’s when the crowd really started to grow larger. And louder. Both players had a number of supporters among the group gathered along the ropes. And the drinks were flowing.

We actually ended up reporting almost every hand of heads up -- certainly all of the significant ones. Which was an example of overcoming huge odds, in my opinion, given the conditions and the scene. Here’s a post I filed just after the third hand of heads-up play:

Insanity at the Final Table
The third hand of heads up began with Pickering having about 950,000 to Selbst's 1.3 million. The two talked a bit about chopping the cash and playing for the bracelet, but couldn't come to terms and the hand was dealt.

“RAISE POT!!!” cried Pickering, again without looking at his cards. An incredulous Selbst checked hers, and made the call.

The flop came . Selbst checked. Pickering again bet the pot, still having not checked his cards. “Have you really not looked?!” asked Selbst. She made the call.

The turn was the . This time Pickering checked. It was Selbst's turn to put on the pressure. She bet the pot.

Thus ensued about ten minutes' worth of hilarity as Pickering contemplated whether or not to call, or perhaps raise the pot again. He also had to decide whether or not he was going to look at his cards.

Finally, amid the shouts of the 70-80 spectators we have gathered around, he gave in and looked at his hand.

“Oh, sh*t! I'm dead!” he said. “Five-king-eight-two!”

“RUN IT FOUR TIMES!” came a shout from the rail.

“I've got a shot at a wheel,” he said. Finally, amid the ever-rising craziness surrounding the table, he let it go. Selbst showed Q-7-7-9, not much, but better than what Pickering had folded.

Selbst has retaken her commanding chip lead.

What did I leave out? Not too much. During that long delay when Pickering was deciding what to do, he did offer once again to split the prize money with Selbst. “Not anymore,” she said. Fact was, when they had been discussing the chop just before this hand, Pickering didn’t seem to understand that since Selbst had a chip lead, she didn’t want simply to split the money 50-50. Maybe he did understand it, but was pretending not to. (Or maybe he’d had one too many.) That’s why the deal couldn’t be made.

I typed all this up in less than five minutes, ran back over to the table (trading spots with my partner), and watched another hand which I then posted ten minutes after this one. With nearly a hundred drunks howling at the top of their lungs as my ambient soundtrack.

Pickering actually managed to take the chip lead via this unorthodox strategy, and in fact Selbst would have to draw out on him in a later hand to avoid elimination. Selbst is a hell of a player, and most definitely earned the bracelet she won tonight. (And I am most definitely glad she won.) But she also had to gamble (a lot) along the way, and especially there at the very end. In the wrap-up post, I described her having “to negotiate her way through the land mines of Pickering's no-look pot-sized raises to take home the bracelet.” Kind of the perfect end to a PLO tourney, really, well capturing the spirit of the “action game.”

I was glad to have been there.

I remember before I came out to Vegas talking to someone about what I’d been hired to do. After I’d explained what the WSOP was, how tourneys worked, and how I’d be reporting hands and happenings as they occurred, my listener thought a moment and asked what I thought was a very reasonable question.

“And there are people who are interested in that?”

I laughed. “Incredibly, yes,” I replied.

Because I know 99% of the world could care less about this stuff. But then there are those who do care about it. A lot. I know. I’m one of them.

It can be pretty damn deflating (sometimes) to see how hypercritical a very small percentage of this already small group can be about the coverage. Hell, I’m critical of it, too. I know it could be better, given different conditions.

But I also know it is pretty much a miracle that there is any coverage at all, let alone this kind of minutely-detailed chronicling of the actions of a few people gathered around a table tucked away in the corner of a ballroom in Vegas.

Day off tomorrow. Chance to recharge, refuel. To tell you the truth, I’m already looking forward to Saturday.

2008 WSOP, Day 13: A Big Hand for the Little Lady

After a couple of weeks live blogging at the WSOP for PokerNews, it has finally happened. I am now dreaming of writing posts.

Found myself a bit restless last night, my slumber punctuated every few minutes by my mind making the effort to compose a short synopsis of yet another hand, trying to relay the action coherently and accurately.

What happens, I guess, when you spend day after day that way.

We played down to the final nine in Event No. 19, the $1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha event, ending the day with an utterly wild, head-scratcher of a hand. Ever since the middle of Day 1, Vanessa Selbst had maintained the chip lead, and had been essentially running over her opponents by applying fairly consistent pressure with her ever-increasing stack. When the tourney got down to ten players, all assembled around a single table to play until the final table bubble was burst. There were several small stacks, including one severely short-stacked player, Ken Lairson, who simply refused to play any hands whatsoever. He even folded his big blind, which cost him nearly a third of his stack.

As play wound down, I sat over at our workstation while the other blogger and both reporters were on the other side of the Milwaukee’s Best Light “No Limit Lounge” (i.e., the mini-arena where they stage televised final tables) watching the table. They’d run over short updates, which I’d then post, such as a funny one where Selbst asked the table if they could institute antes for a round in order to speed up the process of knocking out Lairson.

Anyhow, after about a half-hour of Selbst and the second-place player, Tony Phillips, stealing blinds, a huge hand erupted between the two chip leaders that turned out to be the last hand of the day. When it was over, all three of my colleagues came over to my table in near hysterics. They couldn’t believe what they had just seen.

Marc reported the hand. The blinds were 4,000/8,000. Selbst had something like 600,000 when the hand began, I believe, and Phillips, her nearest competitor, was somewhere around 450,000. Before the flop there was a raise under the gun to 20,000, then Selbst made it 75,000 to go from the cutoff. Phillips, in the big blind, then reraised pot to 239,000. It folded back to Selbst who made the huge call. As you can see already, both players were fairly committed to the hand even before the flop. In fact, before that flop was dealt -- -- Phillips had already pushed the rest of his stack in the middle, betting in the dark.

Selbst called, much to everyone’s distress. Phillips turned over . He’d committed to his aces, and now we were going to see whether or not Selbst had connected with that flop.

Selbst’s hand? .

She’d hit one pair, and the only draws she had were backdoor ones. She had to have believed she was committed, though, as folding would have put her far behind Phillips going into today (he’d have something like a 2-to-1 advantage over her).

I ran the hand through over at Two Dimes and it says Phillips is 58.5% to win the hand here, not as big of an edge as I would’ve guessed. If that’s the case, then Selbst’s flop call is okay from a pot odds perspective, I suppose. The pot was around 750,000, and she had to put in 200,000 or so to make the call, so she was getting better than 3-to-1 at that point. Of course, this is a tourney, not a cash game, so that sort of analysis doesn’t necessarily apply perfectly here.

How did the hand turn out? Well, the turn was the . Phillips was still okay (exactly 65% to win from here). But the river brought the , giving Selbst two pair and about a million chips, making Phillips the final table bubble boy.

Wild stuff. And fitting, really, for a PLO tourney. Will definitely be interesting to see today how Selbst plays her huge stack. She has simply dominated this tourney thus far, making that post title a bit ironic-sounding. (For those who don’t know, I’m alluding to the film of that title.) Selbst is in such a commanding position, she can now afford to take several coin flips with pretty much everyone else at the table.

Meanwhile, I can’t help but feel for poor Tony Phillips. What do you think his dreams were like last night?

2008 WSOP, Day 13: Birthday

Caffeine. Consciousness. Brain waking. Senses returning.

In an hour or so I’ll be heading Rio-ward once again to cover Day 2 of Event No. 19, the $1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha event. With 46 players remaining, we might be in for a short day today as the goal will be to play down to the final nine. Blinds will start at 800/1,600 (Level 11), and the average chip stack is 49,500, meaning theoretically players have a ton of play. But pots get real big real fast in this game, so I imagine we’ll see eliminations pretty much from the start.

Vanessa Selbst is the chip leader by a good margin with over 200,000. Indeed, only three other players have more than 100,000. She was sitting at Table #1 for the last five or six levels last night, right in front of our workstation, and I watched her continually pressuring her opponents pretty much the entire time -- especially once she made that jump up to 80,000 or so and grabbed the chip lead. Wouldn’t mind seeing Selbst take the whole thing down, frankly -- she is such a solid player. I believe Selbst and Allyn Jaffrey Shulman (of CardPlayer) are the only women left in the field.

Eugene Todd is still there as well and thanks to a couple of big hands near the end of the night has built up a stack. I reported once last night that he was overheard saying he’d never played Omaha before. I heard him say it again later on. You could sense in his voice that sincere mix of enthusiasm and wonder when someone performs well at something new. I’m hoping he makes it deep, bro’.

Let me also give a quick shout out to BWoP, who made a deep run in the tourney yesterday, finishing in the top 100. A terrific accomplishment. Have to admit this is the one tourney that I had harbored (mostly private) fantasies about entering, not that I have the tourney chops to have done anything remarkable in it. Thus I found it fairly inspiring to have seen BWoP do so well. Read her account of her day here.

Entering today’s action, we’ll have names of all 46 participants and seat assignments. I’ll be running around at the start in order to get to know all of the faces I don’t already know. I’m definitely looking forward to a more thorough (and perhaps more satisfying) day of reporting.

I’d like also today to be able to sneak a peek at that final table for Event No. 18, the $5,000 No-Limit Deuce-to-Seven Draw Lowball w/Rebuys event. What a stacked line-up they have over there: Jeffrey Lisandro, Mike Matusow, Tom Schneider, Erick Lindgren, Barry Greenstein, Tony Guoga (i.e., “Tony G”), and David Benyamine. Just nuts. Would have been cool to televise, but there is no friggin’ way ESPN is putting Deuce-to-Seven on the air. A game with no up cards? Fugghedaboutit. They start up an hour after we do, so I might run over during our breaks to catch a glimpse.

The final table in the $1,500 No-Limit Shootout (Event No. 17) was originally scheduled for today, but it appears they squeezed in the first two rounds on Day 1 -- a ridiculously long, 19-plus hour day of poker -- and thus finished that one up yesterday. That means today “only” has five events going on: the PLO one I’m covering, the Deuce-to-Seven final table, Day 2 of Event No. 20, the $2,000 Limit Hold’em event, Day 1 of Event No. 21, the $5,000 No-Limit Hold’em event, and Day 1 of Event No. 22, the $3,000 H.O.R.S.E. event.

So another busy day of poker. Not a bad way to spend my birthday. That’s right. Another year of this mortal coil in the books for yr intrepid gumshoe. Some will go on and on today about this being the day Hellmuth won his 11th bracelet last year. But you and I know what’s really more important about June 11.

As always, you can follow it all over on PokerNews.

2008 WSOP, Day 12: Buffets, Bustouts, and Bullsh*t

It is about 2 a.m. Vegas time. Just got back to the temporary digs after another full day of work at the Rio. Thought I’d go ahead and file a little report on the day now, then I’ll come back in the morning with a bit more on the day ahead.

Tuesday began with me hitting the breakfast buffet over at the Gold Coast on my way to the Rio. There’s a reason why it’s so cheap (only six clams).

Wasn’t five minutes into my sloppily constructed plate of sausages, grits, a pancake, and a simulation of Eggs Benedict before my stomach started sayin’ “what in the HELL is going on here, Shamus?”

I decided not to throw bad food after bad, and left the meal unfinished, settling on a cup of Joe from the coffee stand in the hallway of the Rio.

I got set up a bit early yesterday. About twenty minutes before Event No. 19, the $1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha event kicked off, they started blaring the Black Eyed Peas’ “Let’s Get it Started” over the PA in the Amazon Room. First time I’d been there early enough for the musical fanfare. Can’t say I liked it too much, although when they shifted to “Play That Funky Music” and “I Feel Good,” it became relatively less of a bother.

I watched the players begin to trickle in for the PLO event, and my first impression was they were much better dressed (on average) than what you normally see at a poker tourney. Dapper, even. Lots of stylish hats, sweaters, and tucked-in shirts. I attributed the heightened style-consciousness to the preponderance of Europeans entered in the event. Not yr usual American poker player garb here.

Eventually 759 would take their seats for the event, about two hundred players more than entered last year. Omaha is on the rise, I’m tellin’ ya.

My partner yesterday was Marc Convey, an English poker player and writer who knows a lot more of the international players than I do. He was a big help early on identifying players, and I think we did a decent job amid the insanely-rapid pace of the first day. We played ten one-hour levels, and ended the night with just 46 players left (well into the money). That’s something like 71 or so eliminations per level.

There were a few frustrating moments. Omaha was a challenge for some of our reporters, who weren’t always as adept at recording hands or following the action as they might have been in a hold’em tourney. One disappointment came early when Terrence Chan was involved in a hand with Johnny Chan and one other player. It was kind of a complicated, three-way hand, in which Johnny Chan went busto, Terrence Chan won the side pot, and the third player took the main pot. The reporter got most of it, but not enough for me to be able to translate it into a coherent post. I was all fired up to do a “Terrence, Not Johnny” headline, too, but had to scrap it.

I’m a fan of Terrence Chan’s blog, and saw later in the day that he’d already written about the hand and how “all the media missed it.” Well, yes and no. We didn’t “miss” it, but I felt like it would’ve been worse to report it inaccurately than not to report the hand at all.

Experienced a couple of other vexing moments here and there when it seemed like we weren’t getting enough concrete stuff (i.e., friggin’ hands) to report on the blog. (Even jumped out from behind the laptop a few times to get my own hands to report.) Was at times feeling a little bit like Mean Gene said he had been in his post from yesterday -- like I was in a semi-nightmarish situation where I was being charged with the task of having to report on something that I simply couldn’t see.

In the end, though, I think we did reasonably well, and I do believe tomorrow should go much more smoothly what with only 46 runners to follow.

One last little tidbit that came up right at the end of the night that you may or may not find interesting . . . .

We had a player in our chip counts for a short while with the last name “Scheisser.” Kind of an unusual name, but then again, we were dealing with a number of relatively unfamiliar names with this field. Even had a dude come up to our table at one point to ask about the guy, because his last name was also Scheisser and, well, he’d never met anybody outside of his family with the same last name.

Long story short, we eventually discovered the name was incorrect, and in fact decided it might well have been a joke name given to our reporter. As it happens, “Scheisser” is a word of German origin with various scatological connotations -- look around on the net, if yr curious (and brave).

This happens now and then. Had one case already this summer where a player was trying to convince the reporter his last name was “Billy” and his first name “Hill.” I didn’t buy that one, and indeed it turned out to be a ruse. But this one -- whether or not it was a bona fide attempt to bullsh*t us -- made it into the counts, and a post or three.

Once the guy busted we got his correct name over at the payout table -- only real names work over there -- and it was not “Scheisser.” We fixed the chip count and payout pages, and the more recent posts. (There still might be one from earlier in the evening with the wrong name.)

In any event, in the midst of my searching around the web for “Scheisser,” I realized that CardPlayer had been reporting chip counts from our event and listing said “Scheisser,” which made me wonder where they got the name except from PokerNews’ (erroneous) reports? I suppose they could’ve gotten bad info the same way we did, but given what happened last summer, it did make me wonder . . . .

Will be back a little later on with more, probably after I’ve woken up and had my usual breakfast -- two cups of Joe and a side of nothing else.

2008 WSOP, Day 12: Omadraw!

Yr reading the 500th post here. Damn lot of scribblin’, that!

Let me start this one by thanking everyone once again for coming back. And big thanks for all them nice words I’ve received both here, in my email box, and have seen elsewhere around these here intertubes. Means a hell of a lot.

Haven’t written too much here lately about the poker podcasts, but I have been following them. Let me recommend a couple of recent shows to you, in case the WSOP might’ve distracted you from catching them.

One is a podcast I only recently found, the one done by Howard Schwartz, proprietor of the Gamblers Book Shop in Las Vegas. Some might remember I visited the GBS and met Howard last spring. Some time late last year, Howard started a regular podcast in which he interviews authors and other prominent figures in the Vegas gambling scene. Some of you might have read Dr. Pauly’s post yesterday about Archie Karas, the legendary gambler who once turned $10,000 into $17 million, then lost it all. Schwartz interviewed Karas a couple of weeks ago, and he’s every bit as fascinating as Pauly indicates. Click here for that episode, or go here to get to the homepage for the Gamblers Book Club podcast.

Also wanted to recommend the latest episode of Ante Up! in which High Stakes Poker co-host A.J. Benza talks about the show’s possible future. Benza is a funny, smart dude who isn’t shy about sharing his thoughts and opinions. In addition to discussing HSP, he also talks about the Godfather films, his appearance in the last Rocky movie, and his past work as a gossip columnist. You’ll definitely be entertained by this one, I promise you. Click here to get there.

Oh, and while I’m at it I might as well remind you, too, about The Hard-Boiled Poker Radio Show, four episodes of which have been produced. The fifth will come out in a couple of weeks. The podcast features various examples of storytelling, all of which concern poker and/or gambling, and each episode contains an entire old time radio show as well. Check it out.

Looking ahead, then, to today’s action at the WSOP . . .

For PokerNews I’ll be helping cover Day 1 of Event No. 19, the $1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha event. The first hand will be dealt at the crack of noon, and I expect it’ll be a long day at the laptop. The schedule of play says the plan will be to play ten one-hour levels today. Add in the breaks (including a dinner break after level 6), and that means I’ll probably be there reporting until 1 a.m. or so.

But you know I’m not complaining. It’s Omadraw, baby!

Other stuff happening as well, of course. Another six-event day at the Rio. Head over to PokerNews for the complete line-up. Meanwhile, I wanted to make one last observation heading into play today.

As of this morning, we’ve had 18 events get started at this year’s World Series of Poker, about a third of the total number of events planned. Four of those 18 events are described as “new” in 2008. Actually, the only “new” event technically speaking was Event No. 8, the World Championship Mixed Event (a.k.a., S.P.L.E.N.D.O.R.), but the other three feature different buy-in amounts than what we saw in 2007: the $10,000 World Championship Pot-Limit Hold’em event (Event No. 1), the $5,000 No-Limit Hold’em Shootout (Event No. 11), and the $10,000 World Championship Seven Card Stud event (Event No. 14). That means we’ve had people register for and play in 14 events thus far that correspond to events from last summer.

A lot was made of that huge turnout for the first $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em event (Event No. 2). Some observers seem to view these entrants figures as an indicator of the overall health of poker, generally speaking, even though there are always numerous other factors that potentially affect how many people sign up for and play in a given event. Still, I thought it would be interesting to see how thus far the numbers of entrants in 2008 events are comparing to what we saw in 2007 for corresponding events.

What are we seeing? Pretty simple to summarize, really. As far as the numbers of entrants go, the WSOP is holding steady.



Eight of the 14 events have had more entrants in 2008, and six have had fewer entrants. Aside from Event No. 2, no huge changes one way or the other in any of the events. And in a couple of cases, the comparison really doesn’t have much meaning. In this year’s Event No. 9, the $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em Six-Handed event, registration was capped at 1,236, so more might’ve played the event otherwise. And they bumped up to ten-handed tables in the $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em Shootout (Event No. 17), versus the nine-handed tables they had last year. So changes in the numbers of entrants don’t mean too much in those events.

We’ll see if the “holding steady” pattern continues as we get deeper in the schedule. As far as the Main Event goes, these numbers perhaps suggest we’ll probably see something similar to last year’s total of 6,538.

There is one change here, though, that I think might be worth pointing out -- that 20% increase in the number of entrants in Event No. 6, the $1,500 Omaha/8 event. Might indicate something about Omaha’s increased popularity, one could argue. Last year 576 entered the $1,500 PLO event (the one I’m covering today). Wouldn’t be surprised to see quite a few more than that today.

Speaking of which, do follow them live updates over on PokerNews. And thanks again for reading!